Jeanie, I don't know a lot about the Garden of Eden, but I think Adam may have been a Gardening Addict. I read that God planted the garden and Adam was to tend it. I wonder if he was spending too much time tending the garden and not enough time tending Eve.

There seems to be a lot of unanswered questions in all gardens, but if I gives you any peace, my little world seems to be much like yours. Hang in there, every moment is a new moment in time.

Larry

Thanks for the encouraging words, Larry. It does seem as though you take the three steps forward and two steps back in gardening, but still love it, bruises and all!

Jeanie

Nope, you are not the only one. It seems every plant I put out there is dead before it gets established. Or plain ole' missing. I think the wind is ripping them out of the ground. The only thing surviving is the lettuce!

*sigh* ..... Oklahoma gardening.....need I say more?

At least you have a garden... all I have at this time in my life is a few pots on the front porch..... and I envy everyone's pretty pictures!

Moni

Jeanie,

You're not the only one. All the garden challenges you face occur in many places, although some are more unique to rural areas. There's a solution for most issues. I always describe life at our place as either a circus or a zoo every day, and it generally is the wildlife (but also our own domestic animals) that put us in zoo or circus mode. At least it is never dull around here.

Daily watering is a self-perpetuating issue. As long as you continue to water daily, your plants will come to depend upon it. The solution is to water less frequently and to water more deeply. Otherwise, you're training your plants roots to stay in the upper level of the soil because that's where the moisture is. If you will water deeply, the roots will learn to go more deeply into the soil to reach that moisture and you can break their dependence on daily watering. I do this by using a soaker hose. I run the soaker hose as long as moisture is soaking in. Once it starts running off, I turn off the soaker hose and leave it off for 30-60 minutes, then turn the soaker hose back on. Once again, the soaker hoses operates until I see runoff occurring, and then I turn it off again. If you do this consistently, you'll be putting moisture down more deeply and the roots will go down more deeply and will be able to better withstand the drying weather. It took me a couple of drought years here to learn that daily watering of in-ground plants hurts more than it helps and that less frequent but more deep watering is better for the plants in the long run. Daily watering is a very hard habit to break, but you need to do it. If the drought continues and water rationing goes into effect and limits how often you can water, the plants that have become dependent on daily watering likely will not survive. It is better to train their roots to go deeply now than to lose them later.

On the black crape myrtle leaves, my first guess would be windburn. Otherwise, black foliage normally is a sign of aphids and sooty mold, which normally is a summer issue (but we've had summer-like weather).

Here in our rural area, everything eats sunflower sprouts and your area probably is the same way. I start all sunflowers from seeds planted in paper cups with the bottoms cut out. When the plants are 3-4" tall, I plant them, cups and all, in the ground but only in a fenced area. If I plant them outside a fenced area, the rabbits and deer eat them.

With the lawn tractor tire, the solution is tubeless tires that don't go flat, or you can fill your regular tires with that green, slimey looking goop type sealer sold at places like Wal-Mart in the automotive section. The goopey sealer seals punctures as they occur. In rugged, rural terrain all tires are prone to puncture issues and having either tubeless tires (we have them on our wheelbarrow and garden cart) or goop sealant (farmers here put that stuff in their tractor tires sometimes and we use it on fire truck tires) makes a big difference.

The tunnelers are smart and prefer the moist soil because it is easier to tunnel through it. Applying castor oil repellent to force them to move in one direction works, and you can slowly move them in that direction until they're off your property.

We finally started keeping our trash cans in the garage. Back before we built the garage, we used bungee cords to keep the lids on. With a cracked lid, you need to repair it or replace it. Once wildlife has found a food source, they never forget it. We fight lots of wildlife issues here because we have a lot of Wildlife Management Area along the river near us and it is easier to prevent issues than to deal with them after they occur. I enjoy having wildlife around and do what I can to help them through drought periods by putting out water and food for them in an area away from the house, but there are times we have a lot more wildlife here than I'm comfortable having around.

Snakes are always going to be a problem and one you cannot really fix or solve. As long as you have rodents, you'll have snakes because they are going to follow their food source. If you don't have any snakes, your property will become overpopulated with rodents. We kill the venomous ones in our yard, garden and outbuildings. We remove and kill the ones that get into the chicken coop and kill chicks and keats and eat eggs. We leave them alone elsewhere on the property. Our neighbors had someone bitten on their property twice by copperheads but haven't had another incident like that since they followed our suggestion and got themselves some cats.

For every challenge involved in living in rural areas, there are wonderful things to offset the frustration.

I make a 'wildlife puddle' for the wild things to bathe in and drink from. Last night I watched as first the red-winged blackbirds, then the cardinals, and then the doves splish-splashed and bathed in the puddle, which was deeper than usual because of the rainfall the other night. They were lined up like kids at an amusement park. Night before last, I heard the call of a Chuck Walla's Widow around twilight, which is both infrequent here and highly anticipated. Whippoorwill's are more common as are the calls of the Bobwhite Quail. The hummingbirds love to sit on a tree limb or fence line and bathe in the mist from a sprinkler or misting system, so I turn on the sprinkler or mister for them a couple of times a week. Just think, I'd be missing all those experiences if I didn't live out here in what we jokingly call The Oklahoma Outback.

Are there days I'd like to have fewer challenges and more 'special moments' like the ones I just described? Sure, there are, but out here in the sticks, the challenges are many and you just have to deal with them.

This is a much more challenging spring than most. When we are in drought, all the plentiful wildlife is hungry and they will be drawn to any area where humans live because they're likely to find food and moisture there.

Hang in there and hope for better weather.

Dawn

Moni, you make me want to cry. Is your health keeping you from gardening? Do you need help getting a garden started? The only problem with "pot gardening" I have found is the constant watering, especially with heat and wind.
Ezzirah, yep, this wind is beating my poor plants to death, and now we are being threatened with storms, including hail tonight. That is not good, either.
Dawn, thanks for your encouragement and advice. As I have said before, I am a city gal with 0 experience gardening in the country.
I have learned to use soaker hoses, but my main "bed" is a berm island "bed", and since I live on a hill, the wind turns it into clay pot material within 24 hrs. of soaking. I, however, had not thought of "double-soaking". Good idea!
The Crape Myrtle is a mystery, as just half of it blackened. No aphids, have sprayed with a fungicide, hoping for the best because it is so pretty in bloom.
Green, slimey stuff? Hmmmm. Will have to look for that the next time I go to WM.
This is the first year I have had the "tunnelers", but then I used to have a great cat, but the cayotes got it, I'm assuming, since he just disappeared. Broke my heart!
The trash can has a locking lid, but over time, it finally cracked. You won't believe what that critter can drag through that small crack! Guess it is time for a new can.
I have looootttts of rodents, so will just have to "side-step" the snakes, but I DO find them to be a little disconcerting!
Yes, country gardening is MUCH more challenging than city gardening, but, as you say, there are great "perks" in observing the birds, turkeys, road runners, deer, even the antics of the raccoons! I just get a little discouraged, sometimes. As I said, three steps forward and two steps back............

Jeanie

Regarding the clay pot material thing, how are you mulching or amending the soil? I have very much the same problem in certain parts of my yard (like you can't get a shovel more than two inches into the soil at its worst). Once I discovered that the city of Norman had a composting center that gave away their compost for free, I've been grabbing it by the car load. I put a couple inches of it around all my trees and shrubs and have started topdressing my backyard with it, and even just four-six months later I'm seeing results. The soil seems to drain better, it's easier to work with, and my grass is greener in the composted patch than anywhere else. I know it's going to be a long process, but adding organic matter is totally the way to go to deal with the clay.

Jeanie,

I call the tire stuff Goop, but I think its real name is Slime. I'll find it and link it. Our Wal-Mart here has it in several sizes, both in a larger repair kit and in a smaller bottle, and I think there's a couple of versions...one for inner tube tires and one for tubeless tiers. This is probably the first time I've ever recommended slime to any one for any purpose.

We had friends who were trying to keep a mama cat and kittens in a dog travel crate on the front porch in order to keep them safe at night. The travel crate was plastic with a metal grate type door. Twice, with two separate mama cats and their babies, the raccoons were able to remove all the felines from the closed, latched crate without opening the door (unless they figured out how to open the latch, remove and kill the cats, and relatch the door, which seems unlikely). It is hard to comprehend, isn't it? So I am sure they are dragging all kinds of stuff out of your trash. The raccoons, possums and others regularly raid my compost pile for anything they consider edible.

All our chickens, cats and dogs are locked up securely at night, and the dogs are in a fenced dog yard all day. We still lose an occasional chicken to predators, and more rarely a cat, but getting them to come inside before dark and not letting them outside until well after sunrise helps a lot. (However, it makes it hard for them to kill the tunnelers which are active at night.) Having said that, we've had predators walking right through our yard in broad daylight, even while I was right there in the garden. If they are hungry enough, they are very bold.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Slime

Mira, I don't mulch the berm as it receives so much wind and slopes, so don't think I could keep mulch on it, but I DO ammend planting holes, which helps. Boy, can I relate to the 2" shovel depth you tell about! My soil is clay on the surface and hard black "gumbo" beneath. This has kept me from planting some landscape trees that I would LOVE to have.
Dawn, thanks for info on Slime. Now, I know what to look for. Did not know raccoons would eat cats, etc. I already have it in for the cayotes. Guess I won't think raccoons are so cute, anymore, either. I don't have any pets right now. I have always wanted a wolf, but have been discouraged by relatives and friends, since, in reality, they ARE a wild animal. There is a lady here in Garvin County who used to raise wolves. She used to be a member of this web, and her name is Dawna. Don't know if you all are acquainted or not.
Well, hope the storms miss all of us tonight. Hail can do an awful lot of damage!

Jeanie

Jeanie,

Some of us old-timers on this forum are well-acquainted with Dawna, who posts here as Wolflover. Haven't seen her around much lately. She used to have photos of her wolves on her website. I don't know if she still does.

It is getting stormy up your way. I hope you're watching the weather. Lots of hail around.

I mentioned the Davis-to-Sulphur hail/wall cloud/rotation on the 'Craziness Abounds' thread, and now there is baseball-sized hail reportedly falling in the storm moving from Love County towards Ardmore.

Dawn